Tuesday, April 21, 2015

The 2015 Australasian Quilt Convention

Last weekend I went to the Australasian Quilt Convention. I have huge admiration for quilters, having tried quilting myself in the past and failed dismally (as the two started but never finished quilts sitting in my garage can attest!) and I was super excited about seeing what was produced. I was not disappointed.

It was held at the Royal Exhibition Building which, despite having lived in Melbourne my entire life, I have never visited. I found out that this building is where the first Commonwealth Parliament of Australian was opened and where Australia's current flag was first unveiled.

It is a gorgeous building. I haven't captured it well here but there were amazing paintings across the ceilings and walls.

The quilts too were absolutely amazing. This is a beginner quilt!

Colour My World by Gail Scobie

I think it would look fantastic as a knitted blanket...

Some changed my expectations of how quilts should look:

The Definition of Stitch by Sarah Fiekle

Audrey by Andi Herman

There were also more traditional quilts:

Mr Hoffman's Peaches by Robyn Coots

There was a Gallipoli-themed series of quilts as part of the 100-year anniversary of the Gallipoli landing (I don't have the attribution for these - I'm sorry, artist!).

I have only poorly captured a few of the many wonderful quilts that were on display. I was blown away by the quality of work and breadth of creativity on display. It was a really amazing show.

Plus, to make it even better, there was a wool shop there! I was pretty good and only bought one skien of sock yarn but I was very, very tempted.

2 comments:

I didn't realise it was a regular thing, but I would definitely go again. The wool shop was Prudence Mapstone (http://www.knotjustknitting.com/). She had lots of lovely stuff I'd never seen in the flesh before. I feel like I was very restrained :)